brion@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (brion.n.feinberg) (11/11/89)
Before I start, let me make it perfectly clear that this is not an official statement from my company - just my own personal opinion. I wanted to share with the net my extremely positive experience using an HP LaserJet Series II printer with my Mac II. My set up is as follows: Mac II (5 Meg RAM) on a small Localtalk network (using TOPS) HP LaserJet Series II Shiva NetSerial (connects the printer to localtalk) SuperLaserSpool (from SuperMac) MacPrint 1.1 (from Insight Development Corporation) Adobe Type Manager Of course, I would prefer a Postscript printer, but I am very happy with how well this set up is working. Using the NetSerial, I can continue to use my localtalk network for printing, without having to print using the modem port (which I need to receive email and log in to read news, etc.) Both the NetSerial and SuperLaserSpool work with the MacPrint 1.1 driver. Although printing can be quite slow (15 minutes to print a simple PowerPoint page), the output quality is wonderful. With SuperLaserSpool, the printing is done in the background, so I really don't mind the slow speed. I do have access to a postscript printer at another location, and with ATM, I can continue to use the basic Adobe fonts (I use Times exclusively) and I get nearly identical output with the LaserJet or the postscript printer. A few notes: 1. Shiva now sells a product to allow DOS machines on the localtalk network to use the NetSerial. I haven't tried this yet, but it should allow me to share the printer easily (my environment is almost entirely DOS, which is why we have LaserJets and no postscript printers). The NetSerial is a great product - easy to use, totally transparent and it worked perfectly the first time I tried it. I'd assume that the new DOS software would work just as easily. 2. I just received my upgrade to MacPrint 1.2 (for $10). Supposedly, this now supports the new LaserJet IIP, which would make the above set up quite cheap if you are buying a new printer. 3. I saw a note on the net that someone was having trouble using SuperLaserSpool with a LaserJet driver. I've had no problems (I use mutlifinder - perhaps the problems only arise using SLS with the finder). 4. One behavior I can't explain - the printer driver doesn't always seem to use bit map fonts for printing when they are available (instead, ATM generates the fonts). For example, I have 9 pt, 18pt and 36 pt versions of Times (I think these are the Apple versions). I get different output printing 9 point text depending if ATM is on or off (with ATM off, the type looks darker - with ATM on, the letters are a little too fine). I don't know why the bit maps differ so much from the ATM generated versions (perhaps ATM doesn't use the hints but the bit maps did ??). I also don't know why, with ATM on, the printer driver doesn't seem to use the 36 point bit map (is uses 4x the size for printing high quality output). 5. The MacPrint driver allows three qualities for output - high, medium and low (the difference is the resolution: 300dpi, 150 dpi and 75 dpi respectively). The low resolution is perfectly readable and prints quite quickly (usually within 30 seconds). It is great for drafts and other non-display outputs. However, some programs won't print at the lower qualities (the options are dimmed in the printer driver dialog box). I don't know why this occurs, but it forces me to use the slower, high quality printing for some programs (like Canvas and Excel - the problem with Excel seems to be the dashed lines. If I turn off the grid, I can print at lower quality). 6. The manual for the MacPrint driver strongly recommends using the printers built-in fonts (the corresponding Mac bit maps are supplied). These print at great quality even at the low resolution and they print faster. I found it too cumbersome to use these fonts - the sizes are limited, some don't come in bold or can't be used in landscape printing, and it is too hard to convert back to postscript fonts when I have access to the postscript printers. With ATM, I just stick with Times. So, in summary, my complements to a host of companies for a series of well designed products that work well together. Brion Brion Feinberg uucp: att!hounx!brion or brion@hounx.att.com
Fabian@cup.portal.com (Fabian Fabe Ramirez) (11/14/89)
Brion, >3. I saw a note on the net that someone was having trouble using > SuperLaserSpool with a LaserJet driver. I've had no problems (I use > mutlifinder - perhaps the problems only arise using SLS with the finder). SLS 2.0 is ONLY compatible with Insight Development's MacPrint driver software version 1.1 or later (actually Insight made MacPrint compatible with SLS); otherwise, we don't support HP driver or custom printer driver software. Fabian Ramirez SuperMac Technology fabian@cup.portal.com sun!cup.portal.com!fabian